Ground-hog

The wood-chuck.

1789.  A Monack, or Ground-Hog, presented [to Peale’s Museum] by Mr. Johnston.—Advt., Maryland Journal, Nov. 13.

1806.  I also took notice of a small aboriginal animal, called, the Ground or Indian Hog—whose sensibilities are so little refined, that no attention or caresses can ever force from it a reciprocity of manners, or make it refrain from snapping at the hand extended with its daily food.—Thomas Ashe, ‘Travels in America,’ ii. 109 (Lond., 1808).

1813.  It is hard to fight people who live like ground hogs.—Speech of Tecumseh, in Waldo’s ‘Memoirs of Andrew Jackson,’ p. 149 (Hartford, 1818).

1816.  Out start young lads and bring home the partridge, the groundhog, the rabbit, and the opossum with her offspring not bigger than a bean clinging to her teats in her false pouch.—Henry C. Knight (‘Arthur Singleton’), ‘Letters from the South and West,’ p. 64 (Boston, 1824).

1823.  [The prairie dog’s] flesh nearly resembles that of the ground hog, or woodchuck.—E. James, ‘Rocky Mountain Expedition,’ i. 455 (Phila.).

1829.  The terrapins and ground hogs and snakes that we saw [in the microscope] taken from a drop of vinegar.—Mass. Spy, Aug. 5: from the Illinois Intelligencer.

1843.  We had not met with one [buffalo], nor even with a ground-hog.—Marryat, ‘M. Violet,’ ii. 226. (N.E.D.)

1862.  T. has succeeded in killing a groundhog, a huge fellow.—Rocky Mountain News, Denver, April 26.

1877.  In America, it is left to the ground-hog to decide the day, and so the fate of the season. He is supposed to come out of his hole on that day, and take a look at the world. If it is a bright day, he can see his shadow on the ground, and, taking fright at it, will run back into his home and stay there. A fresh attack of winter will set in, and he will be justified in the steps he has taken. If it is cloudy, he will cast no shadow, take no fright, and gives us no further attack of winter.—Hartford Courant, Feb. 3 (Bartlett).

1882.  He knows no more what I did from June to September than a groundhog does of the flight of an eagle.—Washington Critic, March 20.

1885.  Look hyar, you niggers! don’ make fools of yerse’fs, an’ make dese gentlemen tink yer got no more manners ’an a groun’ hog!—Admiral D. D. Porter, ‘Incidents of the Civil War,’ pp. 88–9.

1888.  From this time on, Old Prob. and the Ground-hog will have it nip and tuck, with the chances in favor of the hog.—Daily Inter-Ocean, Chicago, Feb. 4 (Farmer).

1910.  Happy ground hog, in boring a hole in which he can crawl, and remain while Winter and Spring adjust their atmospheric differences.—The Oregonian, Feb. 18.

^*_*^* “Ground-hog day” is February 2nd, Candlemas, a day long associated with weather predictions. Sir Thomas Browne quotes the distich,